In common radio communication systems handover procedures are performed, when a mobile station moves from one cell of the network to another cell of the network. The connection of a mobile station is always controlled by only one base station. The mobile station receives connection data from this base station.
In coordinated multipoint networks multiple base stations send information in a coordinated manner to the mobile station. Common handover mechanisms are not applicable for CoMP networks.
3GPP TS 36.300 version 8.9.0 Release 8 discloses an overview and overall description of the E-UTRAN radio interface protocol architecture. The Intra-E-UTRAN-Access Mobility Support for mobile stations handles all necessary steps for relocation/handover procedures, like processes that precede the final handover decision on the source network side (control and evaluation of mobile station and base station measurements taking into account certain mobile station specific are restrictions), preparation of resources on the target network side, commanding the mobile station to the new radio resource and finally releasing resources on the (old) source network side. It contains mechanisms to transfer context data between evolved nodes, and to update node relations on C-plane and U-plane.
WO 00/67512A1 discloses a method for performing a handover procedure for a mobile station, said method comprising the steps of processing location information related to the mobile stations and position information related to base transceiver station, and deciding on the basis of the result of said processing, whether a first handover condition is fulfilled.